Talks with Experts

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

We need to act fast to fight climate change. Luckily, forests can be a natural climate solution while we work to end carbon emissions. Forests already do an incredible job slowing climate change, utilizing carbon dioxide gas responsible for warming for growing wood. The problem is that around the world we are clearing precious tropical forests for meager profits. If we can instead preserve and regrow rainforests, we can reduce climate change fast! This interactive presentation explores the rich value of tropical forests globally, and uncovers how lost forests can ‘live again’ to help save our climate.

Learn more about Rainforests to the Rescue!

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age

In this session, we will trace the history of ultrasound by learning from bats and boats and even music. You'll learn the basics of how ultrasound works and learn what we can see inside the body with ultrasound.

Learn more about The Power of Echoes: Using Soundwaves to See Inside the Body

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

Making miniaturized robots is the dream of human beings and has received great interest recently as an emerging robotics research area. These tiny robots can potentially swim inside the human body, reach previously inaccessible locations, and treat various diseases. In this presentation, we will showcase the latest research in small-scale robotics, including the first battery-free Da Vinci flying drone invented at Michigan State.

Learn more about Miniaturized Robots: Swimming, Climbing, and Flying

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

Fossils discovered in the last 20 years preserve an outstanding record of several stages in the transition from our fish-finned relatives to the early tetrapods - four-legged vertebrates. This presentation will use fossil specimens from the MSU Museum to show important discoveries that help us to understand the critical steps in the transition from water to land, a major evolutionary event that happened nearly 400 million years ago.

Learn more about Fins to Limbs: How Our Ancestors Came Ashore

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

The color force, aka the "strong nuclear force", aka "quantum chromodynamics", is one of the four fundamental forces in physics. This force dominates the world of the very small, even smaller than atoms! It is so important that without it we wouldn't exist! However, it has never become well known by most people due to the complicated math of its "field theory". But the color force actually has some simple laws and rules that you will learn about in this presentation.

Learn more about The Invisible Force that Binds Us (and Makes Us Heavy!)

Appropriate for: Elementary school age, Middle school age, High school age, Over 21 years only

Bioluminescence is a naturally occurring phenomenon used by various animals to produce light. For example, the firefly uses this mechanism, as well as several deep-sea creatures. The goal of the program is to explain and demonstrate how these unique, light emitting mechanisms were evolved in nature through millions of years. Furthermore, how those mechanisms are now being used by scientists for biomedical research.

Learn more about From Seaside to Bedside: How Marine Organisms and Insects Can Be Used for Diagnostics and Therapeutics

Appropriate for: Middle school age, High school age

Neutron stars are some of the most extreme objects in the universe. Though they are approximately one-and-a half times the mass of our sun, they are less than 30km across. With magnetic fields that are often more than 100 million times that of the earth's as well as surface gravitational fields 200 billion times stronger than the earth's, they are fascinating objects on their own. Now imagine that two of them collide! The resulting cataclysm is not only bright enough to be seen millions of light-years away, but the blast sends ripples through the very fabric of spacetime itself that we can detect here on earth. This talk will explain what neutron stars are, where they come from, and exactly what happens when they collide.

Learn more about When Neutron Stars Collide: Cataclysms in Space